 |
| Darts Trivia | |||
| Notable 301's | Notable 501's | Notable 1001's | Notable 3001's |
| General Trivia | Scoring Records | ||
Many of the records on this page have been surpassed in recent years as
standards
of play and equipment have improved.
It should also be remembered that several
of the people mentioned here were the
trailblazers that set the stage for the professional sport of Darts that
we enjoy today.
| Notable 301 Legs | Top of page |
| Tony Elleson, at the Now Inn Crumlin in Gwent, England, scored a perfect double start/double finish 301 game in June of 1987. While not so unusual in his feat perhaps, but after his first throw he broke a shaft retrieving his darts and literally had to sit down for five minutes and dig out the remains before finishing his game. Certainly the stoppage of play did not affect his concentration: D20-60-60-60-57-D12. | |
| Notable 501 Legs | Top of page |
| The most famous nine darter occurred on October 13, 1984 in the quarter-finals of the MFI World Matchplay Championships. The match featured John Lowe and Keith Deller. Lowe hitting the first televised nine-dart perfect 501 game in the history of the sport. For the record he went: 180-180-141 and collected a cheque for £102,000 pounds for his efforts. | |
| Pat Irwin of the Mitre hotel, playing in a double start/double finish 501 match, hit a 170 in (Dbull-60-60) and a 170 out (60-60-Dbull) in the same leg, in April of 1987. | |
| Roy Blowies, playing at the Widgeon's Pub in Calgary in late 1989 achieved his 9-darter by doubling in on the bull's-eye first. He scored 161(dBull-T20-T17), 180, 160(T20-T20-D20). | |
| While qualifying for the Winmau World Masters in November, 1989, Norfolk County player Martin Golder, threw a very notable 39.12 per dart average in four legs. He threw two 14-darters, a 12-darter and capped it off with an 11 dart game where he threw a 41-180-180-100. | |
| Big Cliff Lazarenko fired his first 9-dart perfect 501 game at an exhibition at the Aberlynon Leisure Centre. Using 25-gram titanium tungsten darts, he threw two 180s and a T20, T19, D12 for the 141 out in the last match of the night. | |
| Paul Lim of San Bernadino, California . threw a perfect 9-dart 501 leg at the 1990 Embassy World Championships. He received £52,000 | |
| Notable 1001 Legs | Top of page |
| On November 11, 1975 at the Broomfield WMC in Devon, England, international star Cliff Inglis threw a magnificent 19-dart 1001 game, smashing all previous records to date: 160-180-140-180-121-180-40. Cliff averaged an unbelievable 52.68 points per dart despite getting lucky with his first dart, hitting a D20 instead of the triple. | |
| During an exhibition at the Bell, Cox Heath, in Maidstone, Kent, England in July of 1989, Alan Glazier, one of the most colourful of professionals, put on a brilliant display of darts. He won all 13 matches highlighting the occasion with a magnificent 21-dart 1001 leg - missing the world record by three darts. His scores were: 140-135-124-140-180-120-161. The 161 out is achieved by hitting a T20, T17 and D-Bull. That's a per-dart-average of 47.67 - start to finish. Earlier that year he hit a 22-dart 1001 leg at an exhibition at St. Joseph's Club, in Chorley, Lancashire. The "Ton Machine" averaged 45.5 per dart scoring an 81-140-180-100-140-140-180-40. | |
| In June of 1978 John Lowe captured a 1001 leg in 22 darts: 140-180-140-100-140-140-125-D18. John averaged 137 per throw or a grand 45.6 per dart. | |
| On June 19, 1987 at the Fishing Boat Inn in Northumberland, Tab Hunter recorded a brilliant 23 dart 1001 leg: 100-180-140-125-140-100-140-76. He averaged a fine 43.5 points per dart, ending the final 76 in two. | |
| Scotland's No. 1, Jocky Wilson hit a 24-dart 1001 leg against American Bud Trumbower in March of 1987, at Eastgate U.S. Marine. Base in England: 180-140-140-140-81-100-100-120. Jocky scored an incredible 600 points in his first 12 arrows and capped the leg with a fine 60-20-40 game shot to average 41.7 points per dart. | |
| Englishman, Richard Smith, a Carlisle local player, completed a 25-dart 1001 leg in mid 1989. He scored 140-100-100-95-180-140-100-122-24. | |
| Notable 3001 Legs | Top of page |
| Welshman Leighton Rees, on December 18, 1976, finished a game of 3001 in 141 darts, scoring on only the outer and inner bull and closing with a double bull. Leighton hit 34 inner bulls and 52 outer bulls while just 55 darts went astray during this epic leg. | |
| In a special pairs 3001 challenge match against Steve Brown and Gene Raymond, London county leaguers Reg Harding and Dave Lee slugged an 86 darter, just 11 darts short of the world record: 41-35-140-125-85-85-140-180-180-80-100-100-100-100-180-55-100-100-140-140-100-100-100-100-45-82-96-32. The pair hit 3 maximums with a 34.8 per dart average for the leg. | |
| General Darts Trivia | Top of page |
| Joe Hitchcock used to love to beat "the champs" with six inch nails. One of his favourite tricks was to "nail" a button from between someone's outstretched fingers. | |
| London, 1937. The late and great Jim Pike went around the board on doubles, retrieving his own darts, in the time of 3 minutes 30 seconds. He did this shooting from the old distance of 9 feet. | |
| The late Jim Pike, a darts legend in England in the 1930's, was such a marksman that he could shoot a cigarette from someone's mouth with a dart - and stick it in any double | |
| The average speed of a dart hitting a board is around 64kph (40mph). | |
| There are more pubs with dartboards in the centre of New York than there are in the centre of London. | |
| At an exhibition match at the Gipsy Stadium, in England, in July 1977, Mohamed Ali faced former Welsh champ Alan Evans. With Evans scoring only on triples, Ali won hitting a bull's-eye on the way out and immediately proclaimed himself darts champion of the world. | |
| On February 21st,1989, at Buckingham Palace, London, Eric Bristow became the first dart player to receive the coveted M.B.E - Member of the British Empire award | |
| We've all heard of people playing darts for money or a beer, but this tale's got a different twist. It's a known fact that singers Tom Jones and Englebert Humperdinck are old friends and like to play darts. When on tour they've been known to appear at various pubs all over the world looking for a game. During the 1970s, they purchased a 3,000-acre ranch and settled for the fishing rights by playing a game of darts. Just for the record, Jones won. | |
| Dartboards are made from compressed biscuits of African sisal. | |
| The best wooden one-piece darts were manufactured by peasants in the Jura Mountains of Southern France. | |
| Dart players in Philadelphia, Pa. (the home of American style darts) used to keep their dart points sticky by sticking them in potatoes. | |
| The first man to sell matched sets of brass darts was a Hungarian salesman of boiler linings named Frank Lowy. He went on to found Unicorn darts, still the largest darts manufacturers in the world. | |
| The strangest material ever suggested for making darts is spent uranium. | |
| In the British Dart Organization (BDO), Sikhs are exempt from the rule forbidding headgear. | |
| In some very friendly games, a player is allowed to "double out" by throwing a dart into the space between the two wires comprising the numeral "11". | |
| In 1896, Brian Gamlin, a British carpenter, arranged the numbers on the dartboard as we see them still today. | |
| Eric Bristow got his nickname "The Crafty Cockney" not from his accent, as some may think, but from a T-shirt he picked up in a California darts pub. | |
| The legendary British dart player, Tom Barrett, was stone deaf for six months after being torpedoed on a convoy to Malta in 1942. | |
| In December 1977 The World Darts Federation recommended a throwing distance of 7' 9 1/4". Up till then there were many different rules: | |
| John Reader of Sussex recorded the first 180 in 1902 | |
| Oche is an old French verb meaning to notch or nick and is dated well before the advent of darts. Then what about the story below. | |
| In 1908 in Portsmouth, three beer crates from S. Hockey & Sons were put end to end (9 feet) to mark the throwing line hence 'Toe the Hockey'. In 1911 Petrie Brewers took over Hockeys, and new crates of 2 feet were introduces. Four of these gave a throw of 8 feet. | |
| Craig Ishigo of Gardinia, Calif. threw a perfect cricket leg without even realizing it. In his first shot he threw a T20, T19 and T18, followed by a T17, T16 and T15. He capped it off with a bull and dbull. Afterwards, when his feat had been pointed out to him, he said he thought the game had gone unusually fast but hadn't really thought about it. | |
| Scoring, Endurance and Speed | Top of page |
| Duncan Swift, playing out of the Felilxstowe Dock Sports and Social Club, Surrey, scored 493,470 points to capture the 24 hour solo record in May of 1987. While shooting and retrieving the darts himself, Duncan hit an incredible 123 180s, 643 140s and used a total of 18,369 darts for a fabulous 26.86 points per dart average. | |
| In April of 1988, Stephen Wagg set the 12 hour solo record for scoring double and single bulls at the Thorncliff Cricket and Social Club in Sheffield, England. Stephen registered 961 double bulls and 3,335 single bulls for a score of 131,425. He threw a grand total of 9,714 darts for a 13.52 per dart average. | |
| An eight-hour record for scoring bulls and double bulls was set by Birmingham players George Perry and Tony Hodgkiss at The Seventh Trap Public House in December of 1987. The two, averaging 16.19 per dart, hit 1,406 double bulls and 4,247 single bulls for a total of 176,475 points, breaking the old record of 1,048 double bulls and 3,308 single bulls. | |
| In September, 1989 Vic Cutts and Pete Hotchkins playing at the Eagle Nechells, Birmingham, England, totaled 460,740 points setting a 24-hour two-man record. The truly amazing fact of their feat is that they accomplished it on the more difficult Champion's Choice dartboard. | |
| In November of 1989, Tony Jones recorded 28 perfect 180 scores in just one hour and 25 minutes for a charity event in Manchester, England. | |
| During a 24-hour period in August 26-27, 1988, Paul Finch, Graham Prior and Nick Steggell scored 2,093 double bulls and 7,861 single bulls at the Eight Bells in Ewell, Surrey, England. | |
| Six gents from the White Lion Hotel in Penzance, Cornwall (UK) went around the board 137 times on triples in 12 hours on January 19, 1986. | |
| In 1986, Allen Chaperlin and Ian Melton played 1,265 full games of 501 in 182 hours and one minute at the Eagle Tavern, Oxford, England. That's one game every 8.6 minutes and the feat took over 7-1/2 days to complete. Ya gotta love it. | |
| 24-Hours HIGHEST SCORE 4 MAN TEAM Graham Innis, Graham Miller, Graham Parker, and Richie Davis scored 1,003,769 points at the Maxilla Club in London, England. During that period they hit 152 perfect 180s.On March 28-29, 1986, | |
| 15-minute FAST SCORING 8,806 7-man superstar linup consisting of Bob Anderson, Eric Bristow, John Lowe, Chris Johns, Martin Phillips, Alan Warriner, and Ritchie Gardner in a charity throw at the 1988 British Professional Championships. | |
| 24-Hours September 28-29, 1985 8 players from the Broken Hill Darts Club in New South Wales, Australia scored 1,722,249 | |
| 24-Hours HIGHEST SCORE 744,439 October 13-14, 1990 An 8 Women team from the Lord Clyde in Leyton, London scored | |
| 24- Hours INDIVIDUAL 566,175 by Russell Locke at Hugglescote Working Men's Club, Leics, UK on 17-18 September, 1993 | |
| 24-Hours BULLS & 25s (8 players) 526,750 by a team at the George Inn, Morden, Surrey, in England on July 1-2, 1994. | |
| 10-Hours MOST TREBLES 3,056 (from 7992 darts) by Paul Taylor at Woodhouse Tavern in Leytonstone, London on October 19, 1985. | |
| 10-Hours MOST DOUBLES 3,266 (from 8,451 darts) by Paul Taylor at Lord Brooke, Walthamstow, London on September 5, 1987. | |
| 10-Hours HIGHEST SCORE (Retrieving own darts) 465,919 (done as a doubles team) Jon Archer and Neil Rankin at Royal Oak, Cossington, Leics on November 17, 1990 | |
| 10-Hours BULLS (individual) 1,320 by John Lowe at The Unicorn Tavern, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, UK, on October 27, 1994 | |
| 6-Hour MEN 210,172 by Russell Locke at Hugglescote Working Men's Club in Callville, Leics on September 10, 1989. | |
| 6-Hour WOMEN 99,725 by Karen Knightly at Lord Clyde in Leyton, London on March 17, 1991. | |
| Million and One Up | Top of page |
| (Excerpted from Guinness Book of Records, 1993) | |
| MEN (8 players) 36,583 darts by a team (Larry Butler, Joe Futima, mark Goodman, Dan Gorman, Dave Kelly, Jay Monahan, Pete Morrison, Ted Steeves) at Buzzy's Pub and Grub in Lynn, Mass. on October 19-20, 1991. Points per dart average: 27.24 | |
| WOMEN (8 players) 70,019 darts by the Delinquents dart team at Top George in Devon, England on September 11-13, 1987. Points per dart average: 14.28 | |